Monday, April 30, 2007

Crafting the candidate experience

I read this neat article on MSN titled 15 ways stores trick you into spending. I just wanted to share a few of the highlights of the tricks they listed. Some of them are obvious but their all interesting. One of these tricks was that the desirable departments are placed far away from the entrance. Another one of the tricks mentioned was that impulse-oriented items are placed near the checkouts. Another one commonly known one was that the most expensive versions of a product are the ones at eye level. Staple items are placed in the middle of aisles, nonessential and overpriced items near the end.

The list goes on and on but what seemed interesting to me is how the whole shopping experience is planned strategically to maximize the impact to the bottom line during the short time the shopper will walk the aisle.

What occurred to me was, if the stores like Kroger’s, Walmart, and Eckerd’s who sell .59 cent items invest so much thought into developing strategies for selling us those items, shouldn’t we as sourcers and recruiters invest more thought into developing strategies to maximize the experience of the candidate we are courting?

Every step of the experience should be well calculated to give them reasons to choose to stop and pick me over every other sourcer and recruiter. Remember the grocery store shopping experience is not littered with “PICK ME, PICK ME” signs or messages. It is littered with temping reasons to stop. If one strategy didn’t work to temp you as you walk then the next one surely will.

When your candidate gives you objections he is just saying “that strategy is not motivating me to pick you”. You need to find another strategy but these strategies shouldn’t be something you come up with on the spur of the moment, you need to have strategized beforehand and walked in his shoes down your shopping aisle thinking how he will walk and to give him prently of reasons to buy. Craft the candidate experience carefully thinking it through from initial call to final offer.

Keep in mind that you don't control the candidate, you control the way he experiences the hiring process, knowing that you are controlling his experience will give you more confidence in the process, which will strengthen your presentation. Take the voicemail for instance, your voice mail message is very important to your cold call sourcing campaign. Until your prospect has the opportunity to experience what your company can do for them first hand, the only thing they will have been exposed to is you! Your voice is your product. Your voice mail approach, the language or verbiage or the compelling words, even the tone you use is your product. If your voice mail is your prospect's first exposure to what you have to offer, then it is essential to understand that the impression they get from your voice mail correlates even equates to the value they can expect from you!

Remember your candidates don’t buy the benefits you offer them or the better pay, or anything you could offer them what they are really buying is the experience they have with you.

And if he walks out without buying? You'd do well to remember that you are not going to get them all, that is why we have Eckerd's, Walgreen's, CVS etc... oh, well here comes another shopper!!

1 comment:

Rithesh Nair
said...

Good one - but I am smart buyer. It doesn't bother me that the "pick me" ones are staring at me; I go for the one I want ...so does a good candidate. Long term startegy should to market the hardcore ones ..easy "pick me" are easy to get.. oh here comes another one... ...:)